Friday, February 3, 2012

I rarely just re-post articles, but when I find one that is particularly insightful I am willing to do just that. In the last draft, Trevor Bauer was my favorite pitcher in the class. Now, I find I appreciate his thoughts on pitching almost as much as his pitching. For those who don't know, Bauer is a proponent of the torque based pitching mechanics utilized by Tim Lincecum, which focus on generating velocity with the entire body, not just the arm. Anyway, his thoughts are worth reading.

Prospect Q&A: Bauer gets taste of pros

Third overall pick garners Southern League title in first season
By David Heck / Special to MLB.com
01/03/2012 10:00 AM ET

In
2010, UCLA sophomore Trevor Bauer asserted himself as one of the best
pitchers in college baseball, posting a 3.02 ERA and nation-leading 165
strikeouts en route to being a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award. In
2011, he performed even better, lowering his ERA to 1.25 and fanning
203, again topping the nation and setting a Pac-10 record. He was named
the Golden Spikes Award winner, Collegiate Baseball's National Player of
the Year and the Pac-10 Conference Pitcher of the Year.

Following
his breakout season, Bauer was selected third overall by the D-backs in
the Draft. He pitched well in three short starts for Class A Advanced
Visalia, compiling a 3.00 ERA and striking out 17 in nine innings. He
then moved on to Double-A Mobile, where he experienced his share of
struggles. The 20-year-old right-hander's ERA rose to 7.56, though he
did fan 26 in 16 2/3 frames.

In the Southern League playoffs,
Bauer's inconsistencies continued. He yielded seven runs in just three
innings in Game 4 of the semifinals but then tossed five one-run frames
as he won the clinching game of the Championship Series.

With his
lean frame, high-torque delivery and impressive strikeout numbers in
college, Bauer has garnered comparisons to Tim Lincecum. He further
breaks the mold of conventional pitchers by throwing much more often
than most and doing all of his training without weights.

MiLB.com
recently caught up with Bauer to talk about his first taste of the
pros, his unusual workout regimen and what he does to relax.

MiLB.com: You were taken third overall in June. What was that like?

Trevor
Bauer: I was kind of upset at that time because [UCLA] lost the night
before and got knocked out of Regionals, so that kind of [stunk]. The
next day, I was drafted and that was cool. I came down somewhere in the
middle about a week later. It [stunk] having my college career end that
way, but I was extremely excited to be given the opportunity to keep
playing baseball. I was definitely excited. I never thought I would go
that high. Growing up, you dream of playing big league baseball, but
it's never a reality to say you're drafted in the first round. You just
hope for that chance. It was pretty awesome.

MiLB.com: You won
about every college honor in 2011, including the Golden Spikes Award.
Did you expect that type of season out of yourself?

Bauer: I
didn't expect to win the awards, but I did expect that type of season
out of myself. I felt like I was in a place after my sophomore season,
where I had a good foundation to springboard myself to an even better
year. I really devoted myself to it as much as I possibly could with
school and homework and all that goes with being a college athlete. I
expected myself to have a breakout season.

MiLB.com: You pitched
for the Mobile BayBears down the stretch and won the clinching game of
the Championship Series. That must have been a nice end to your first
pro season.

Bauer: It definitely was, especially after having two
poor outings leading up to that. It kind of stunk having those outings
because I got to a team that's been working all year to win the Double-A
championship and I join them late and, especially a bad playoff outing,
I feel like, "Oh no. I left it up for these guys that have done a great
job all season." That was a bad feeling, but Charles Brewer picked me
up in the fifth game of the first series and I turned in strong
performance in the second series. It was definitely good to end on a
strong personal note and a great team note.

MiLB.com: Obviously,
the transition from college to the pros is pretty drastic. How did your
lifestyle change after starting your Minor League career?

Bauer: I
enjoyed the Minor League lifestyle better. I didn't have to wake up in
the morning and go to class. I felt like I could just devote all my
energy to baseball, which is really nice. In college, you devote as much
as you can, but you still have other responsibilities: class, homework,
gotta do this, gotta do that.

I definitely enjoyed the lifestyle
more and felt like I had free time -- that it wasn't so jam-packed and
everything was filled up. I could actually wake up and do some stuff
that I enjoy doing. I lived a more relaxed and more quiet lifestyle.
There's a lot going on in college and not a whole lot going on other
than baseball in the Minors. I'm a pretty laid-back guy, so I enjoyed
that.

MiLB.com: I understand your workout routine is different from many other pitchers. Can you talk about your regimen a little bit?

Bauer: I don't work out in the weight room. I do mostly strength and conditioning stuff that's focused on moving quick and body mass. I
have to generate velocity by creating tension in the body and releasing
it all in sequence, getting a summation of force rather than brute
strength it. All my workouts are focused on that, building up strength and fast-twitch movements.

In terms of my throwing program, I throw every day. I do a lot of work on how to properly accelerate my arm, so I'm putting as little stress as possible on it.The
great thing about that is it allows you to bounce back quicker. I do
long toss the day after a start, and I can do two bullpens in between
starts. And it just helps a lot of things. It keeps your pitches in
shape, because you get to throw more often and get a better feel for
them. You get better arm strength and can work on mechanics. It's
definitely a very complex throwing program, but I do a lot of study on
how to throw as healthily as I possibly can -- that really helps.

MiLB.com: And you talked to teams about your routine before the Draft?

Bauer:
I expressed the concern that I found something that has worked for me,
and I'd like to go to a team that was going to try to help improve me
and enhance what I already do instead of work to change me. That's how I
expressed it to teams. I was looking for a marriage of sorts. I was
willing to go part way if they were. I wanted to make an agreement
instead of them saying, "This is how we do things and this is how you're
going to do them or get out."

All the talks I had with teams
were very much in that vein. There were some reports of me telling teams
not to draft me, and that really wasn't true. I was just kind of
interviewing teams just to figure out philosophies and get as much
information as we possibly could to be as well prepared to negotiate
with whoever.

MiLB.com: You said in an interview with Sports
Illustrated that you aren't a natural-born athlete, you were made. Can
you describe what you meant?

Bauer: I'm not fast. I've never been
able to run fast. I can't jump. I can't really do a whole lot of
athletic stuff. I can't shoot a basketball, I never played football. The
stuff that you would consider an athlete would do growing up, I never
really had that. My dad ran long-distance stuff. I think I inherited a
lot of those genes. The slow, good endurance, but not a whole lot of
explosive power. So pretty much everything I have has been trained and
worked on, and it's been a conscious effort to become more athletic as
opposed to natural athleticism.

MiLB.com: A lot of people have
compared you to Tim Lincecum. Do you think of yourself as being in that
mold or as a completely separate pitcher?

Bauer: In some ways I
am. I think mechanically I modeled myself off of him when I was changing
my mechanics around. I've studied the principles he uses and how he
goes about certain things, and I applied same principles to my delivery.
Mechanically, I'd say we're similar, and our ideology is similar too.
But I think there's also a lot of difference in how we attack hitters,
and we've got completely different movement toward batters. Nobody's
ever going to throw a baseball exactly like someone else. There are
similarities, but I'm sure you can find similarities between just about
any two pitchers.

MiLB.com: You're with a National League team,
and that means you'll be hitting every once in a while. You got a taste
of that last season when you walked twice and struck out once in three
plate appearances. How would you rate yourself with the bat?

Bauer:
I think on a scale of 1 to 10, I'm probably in the negative numbers. I
always had a joke with my dad that I was mired in an eight-year slump. I
played shortstop when I was younger, and I was really good with the
glove. I was good defensively, but I hated hitting. If I could've just
been a defensive replacement, I would've been super happy.

MiLB.com: Is there anything in particular you do to relax during the season?

Bauer:
I do play video games every now and then. I played a lot in college,
but kind of got over that and didn't like wasting that much time that
doesn't give me anything in return. I'm getting into music a lot,
listening and writing songs and making beats. That's kind of my hobby
that I do in my free time when I'm not working out or studying pitching.
I enjoy watching UFC -- I'm a big UFC fan. And I enjoy college
basketball. Basketball is a passion in life more than anything else. I
live and die by [Duke's team] every year, so that's a knock on me given
that I went to UCLA. But I've been a Duke fan my whole life. Overall, I
enjoy living a relaxed lifestyle and enjoy playing baseball.

David
Heck is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the
approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or
its clubs.

After reading the MLB.com article on how new GM Jeff Luhnow was rebuilding the Astros and having an epiphany about it, I decided to follow him on Twitter. I was surprised to find that he held a quick Twitter Chat. In and of itself, it's pretty cool to see a GM actually hold a Twitter chat, but there are also a few nuggets that I thought were interesting, so I'm re-posting the chat for those who might be interested in how front offices operate, as everything out of Luhnow's mouth is like a master class in modern GM'ing.

#SSAChat FIRST General Question for everyone: What are the recent advancements in analytics people should be aware of?

About Me

Blessed (or is it cursed) to be a Reds fan. I've loved baseball as long as I can remember. Played it until they told me I couldn't anymore. Now, always thinking on it.
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